him
with polite attention. He had some thinking to do, and he was grateful for
the gallant Colonel’s willingness to take all the strain of
conversation away from him. Mr. Immelbern chewed his cigar in chronic
pessimism until half an hour had passed; and then he glanced at his watch again, started up, and broke into the middle ofone of his host’s
rambling sentences.
“The result ought to be
through by now,” he said abruptly. “Shall
we go out and get a paper?”
Simon stood
up unhurriedly. He had done his thinking.
“Let
me go,” he suggested.
“That’s
awfully good of you, my dear boy. Mr. Immelbern would have gone.
Never mind, by Gad. Go out and see how much you’ve won. I’ll open another bottle.
Damme, we must have a drink on this, by
Gad!”
Simon
grinned and sauntered out; and as the door dosed behind him the eyes of
the two partners met.
“Next
time you say ‘damme’ or ‘by Gad,’ George,” said Mr. Immelbern,
“I will knock your block off, so help me. Why don’t you get some
new ideas?”
But by
that time Lieut-Colonel Sir George Uppingdon was beyond taking offence.
“We’ve
got him,” he said gleefully.
“I
hope so,” said Mr. Immelbern, more cautiously.
“I
know what I’m talking about, Sid,” said the Colonel stubbornly.
“He’s a serious young fellow, one of these conservative chaps like
myself—but that’s the best kind. None of this dashing around,
keeping up with the times, going off like a firework and
fizzling out like a pricked balloon. I’ll bet you anything you like, in
another hour he’ll be looking around for a thousand pounds to give us to put on
tomorrow’s certainty. His kind starts slowly, but it goes a lot
further than any of you fussy Smart Alecs.”
Mr.
Immelbern made a rude noise.
Simon
Templar bought a Star at Devonshire House and turned without anxiety
to the stop press. Greenfly had won the two o’clock at five to one.
As he
strolled back towards Clarges Street he was smiling. It was a peculiarly
ecstatic sort of smile; and as a matter of fact he had
volunteered to go out and buy the paper, even though he knew what
the result would be as certainly as Messrs. Uppingdon and Immelbern knew it, for the sole and sufficient reason that he wanted to give that
smile the freedom of his face and let
it walk around. To have been compelled to sit around any longer in Uppingdon’s apartment and sustain the
necessary mask of gravity and sober interest without a breathing spell would have sprained every muscle within six inches of his mouth.
“Hullo,
Saint,” said a familiar sleepy voice beside him.
A hand
touched his arm, and he turned quickly to see a big baby-faced man in
a bowler hat of unfashionable shape, whose jaws moved rhythmically like
those of a ruminating cow.
“Hush,”
said the Saint. “Somebody might hear.”
“Is
there anybody left who doesn’t know?” asked Chief Inspector Teal
sardonically.
Simon
Templar nodded.
“Strange
as it may seem, there is. Believe it or not, Claud Eustace, somewhere in
this great city—I wouldn’t tell you where, for anything—there are left two
trusting souls who don’t even recognise my name. They have just come down from their
hermits’ caves in the mountains of Ladbroke Grove, and they haven’t yet
heard the news. The Robin Hood of modern crime,” said the Saint
oratorically, “the scourge of the ungodly, the defender
of the faith—what are the newspaper headlines?—has come back to raise
hell over the length and breadth of England—and they don’t know.”
“You
look much too happy,” said the detective suspiciously. “Who
are these fellows?”
“Their
names are Uppingdon and Immelbern, if you want to know—and you’ve
probably met them before. They have special information about racehorses,
and I am playing my usual role of the Sucker who does not Suck too long. At
the moment they owe me five hundred quid.”
Chief
Inspector Claud Eustace Teal’s baby blue eyes looked him
BWWM Club, Shifter Club, Lionel Law